I am writing a paper at present on the parallels between the allegorical message of the Royal Arch degree and the philosophy of Martinism; I wondered if anyone else has looked at the similarities between the two in terms of symbolism and the meaning within the degree?Also, have been trying with no success to determine whether LCdSM had received an early version of the RA degree? Any comments gratefully received :)Matt

ManOfDesire wrote:I am writing a paper at present on the parallels between the allegorical message of the Royal Arch degree and the philosophy of Martinism; I wondered if anyone else has looked at the similarities between the two in terms of symbolism and the meaning within the degree?Also, have been trying with no success to determine whether LCdSM had received an early version of the RA degree? Any comments gratefully received :)Matt

Greetings Matt from a fellow Canadian, friend, brother, compainion, Frater and if I dare -- fellow Adept of sorts.

I thought to tease you a little bit as the handle or nick-name you have picked for introduction. A good one indeed from one who knows you as welll as I like to think I do. You are one man that has done our Orders proud. To use that over-used, but accurate expression: "A man that talks the talk, and walks the walk." Simply knowing you is an honour that comes too infrequently in this life.

The premise that the Holy Royal Cross of Jersalem may have been an earlier attempt at esoteria that Martinism has supplied some of us with a outlet for ceremony or even a guise for those things "that aren't proper to be written" is interesting research might be a suprise for us all.

The HRAoJ did at one time be the Overbody of many ceremonies and Orders that I hadn't even guessed at until a bit of research.

I suggest that you ask our Irish and Scottish Brethren here at this premier forum the history of how the Orders of the Knights' Templar and the HRAoJ were jointly meshed and who had control of the many Orders, some now gone or forgotten that were under the contol of either or which. The 17th century with it's multiple Orders and complexities of who ran who (or is it whom?) is a very grey area.

You have a great chore before you Man of Desire. I hope you are on good footing with the librarians of UGlE, The GLoS and the GLoI.

Or as mentioned before; the many well-versed and and host of masonic scholars you have here for your questions.

Care GordThank you for your welcome my friend; and your overly exuberant and entirely undeserved kind words... I am simply a seeker after Light and try to improve from what I have studied. My handle simply sums up the recognition within myself of being a mere searcher after the One Light & Truth.My contacts within the UGLE library are I suspect a little out of date; the dual Johns (Ashby & Hamill ) were my last contacts, but that is almost 20 years ago. Hence my posting here as there are certain members who are indeed extremely well learned and respected scholars.I suspect a lot of this comes back to Papus in the formation of the Ordre Martiniste proper, but my interest lies with trying to determine if an early version of the HRA was indeed something that LCdSM had received and may have assimilated into his philosophy. At the end of the day, did the chicken create the egg, the egg create the chicken, or was this overarching similarity pure synchronicity or even simply interpretation and reprocessing by Papus?LVXMatt

In my view Holy Royal Arch started with Sumerian material (circle of zodiac) and was converted to conform to the straight lines of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. If you still have 2 sets of sacred words then it is simple to see that one set is 3 Sumerian gods and the other is Hebrew.

And in ancient Egypt their God of Millions of Years was also known as Holy Arch since he was supposed to come from the Pole Star - around which the arch of the heavens rotates. He was also royal because according to Sumerian tradition he "lowered kingship to earth"